Eating the New Year The ram’s head, My great times great grandfather would eat, To welcome the new year with words “May we be the head and not the tail!” But you, my son, Dip apples into honey, And did you remember to say “To make for us a good and sweet year?” At first we wished for abundance. Your great times great-great grandfathers tillers of soil, (that was our side of the curse) greeted the new year with pumpkins…
To my friends in the rabbinic world and those amazing souls who are not rabbis but are preparing for the high holidays, I’m going to be posting the many poems I’ve penned for those alternative readings at a new blog… www.highholidaypoems.blogspot.com Enjoy! And drop me a line if you use one in your service!
Gratitude to Dan Epstein of Dan Epstein Photography for sharing with me this photo of the Simchas Torah party at B’nai Keshet back in 2010. I’m digging the heavy shtetl vibe.
This is an adaptation of a parable from the Maggid of Dubno (Rabbi Jacob Kranz) “Once there was a wealthy man who wanted to protect his fortune so he hid his wealth in different places in his house. He died before telling his young son where he had hidden the money. After the father’s death, the son lived in the home but he had no work and he had little to eat. He grew increasingly desperate and one day was…
Judgment DayWords and Music by Daniel S. Brenner With wishes to all for a sweet and healthy new year.
Also — I have a new website up for Tisha B’Av: Check out Tisha B’Av ideas for summer camp over at http://tishabav.blogspot.com/
I’ve heard conflicting ideas regarding the spirit world that we refer to as heaven. But if I was to make a prediction about what is currently underway in that upward eternal everlasting time zone out there, I’d have to say that those spirits are about to experience a period of unexpected fun. Scrabble games and Hungry, Hungry Hippos, croquet contests, wacky wind-up toys, a wooden puppet who dances on a plank – did I mention boxes full of chocolate, and…
My beloved and I just returned from an amazing five-day trek in Guatemala. Visiting our friends in Antigua, traveling to Lake Atitlan to visit Santiago – it was an amazing journey. Here are the top 100 of the 1,000 photos I took. As part of the trip, we spent time with a Mayan woman (actually a Tz’utujil Mayan) named Dolores Ratzun. You can read about her life here. If you go to Atitlan, hire her for a tour – she…
I will be reading my latest short story, The Terrorist’s Terrible Toothache, on Saturday, May 18th at B’nai Keshet 99 South Fullerton, Montclair NJ @ 8PM. The reading will be part of a literary salon that will include playwrights, songwriters, a dancer, poets, and apparently my beloved. Anyways – If you are interested in The Terrorist’s Terrible Toothache then come on down to Montclair!
I’ve made a list of the top five songs for shavuot over on a new blog entitled Shavuot Songs. What made the list this year? Check it out.